I want to SEE my Fonts!!!

Hi -

I am an XP user and I have a problem that I know somebody must have the answer to. Occasionally, I want to use a distictive font. I don't know just exactly what I want, so I would like to just Scroll through them until I see one that looks good.

You can look in your font files, however, it only allows you to look at the fonts one at a time.

You can look in Word's font selection window...now this is getting closer. you can scroll down the list and see the font name written in the font itself. The major drawback is that the fonts are much to small when viewed this way for that to be of much use.

I was looking for a particular font i don't know the name of. the letters are sort of Squares with finely engraved vines and decorations. a little like "codec" for those of you that have it but old fashioned.

anyway, I have upwards of 2500 fonts on my computer, and thousands more lying around. I would be good to be able to scroll through samples a page at a time at a size large enough to see all of the detail.

Any Ideas?

- HandsOff

 

Would one of these do the job?
http://www.snapfiles.com/downloadfind.php?st=font viewer&search=Search&lc=1&action=s

Don't use one myself, so can't recommend anything.

 

Beat me to it.

 

Slightly OT, but another question about fonts.

Is there any reasonably reliable way to learn which fonts I've never used (or at least not in written history) and am highly unlikely to use, so I can safely dump them?

 

FontList shows all your fonts
http://www.bitstorm.org/fontlist/

direct download
http://www.bitstorm.org/fontlist/FontList1.4-installer.exe

 

Mike-

That is an interesting question. I wish it was true, because then I could use the date to identify the font I am looking for. I suppose people who create many different groups for them could have some success that way.

I like fonts, obviously, but there is one I am about to dump. it is called "Times" and Amazon and many others seem to love the rustic look of broken, off-centered, and smeared type. To each her own, I guess.

I am going to checkout those programs the rest of you have suggested. I should know better than to get my hopes up but...THIS COULD BE BIG!

-HandsOff

 

Thanks, HandsOff -- probably not worth worrying about, I guess. Back when 100 megs (or even less) was a big drive, standard advice used to be to clean out unnecessary fonts to free up disk space. Current drive's 40 gigs (35 on the main partition) of which 90 percent is free space, so I'm not about to lose any sleep over the "problem".

 

Hey Mike,

Back in the W95/98/ME days the was a much bigger problem with "active" fonts being loaded into windows at startup which made it pretty critticle not to have huge numbers of them being active. Things Like ATM (Adobe Type Manager) and Extensis Font Suitcase provided the means to have them on your HD and yet not be active. The only reason I am going into this is that I have heard it said with authority, that with those operating systems 75% of the system crashes had something to do with font problems. I have a hard time believing that, unless they were talking about people who did mostly boring stuff on their computers.

My understanding is that XP does not actually load a font until it is being used. Naturally, I had to test this by loading several thousand fonts on my computer and seeing if it would cause my computer to start reeling and bogging. To my surprise it did not seem to have any noticable effect on performance.

-HandsOff

 

Ronjor!

I just wanted to say that the very first program on the list at Snapfiles that you gave in response to my initial post worked perfectly. I couldn't believe it! I quickly found my lost font. I expected it to be slow, or to only work on TT fonts, but it works on all fonts.

For the benefit of anyone interested its call "Free&Easy Font Viewer v1.2" and is about 658 kb download.

 

HandsOff . i just realised that they have a working model of the program i linked to, at this page. you can play around with the B I + CharMap buttons. its the only font viewing program i have ever used, and i only have a few fonts. would you recommend the program you picked over fontlist? if so i'll change. thanks, HandsOff

 

Hey Iceni, I downloaded 'Front List" yesterday and it suits me very well. I printed the fonts I have and believe me it is much faster to find a paticular font now. Thanks!

 

i'm very pleased you like it Uguel. if it gets your vote, then i think i'll stick with it thanks

 

I Downloaded 'Fontpage' from Rons' 'Snapfile' Link.....Cracking programme....Does what it says and simple with it.....Thanks Ron...


Cochise,

 

By a Bike Mate.....your going to need it... Now that I can D/L stuff in the blink of an eye I'am merciless......



Cochise,

 

Hello all,

The two programs FontList, and FontPage, did indeed catch my eye. FontList, if my memory serves me correctly was only something like a 69 kb download and i was amazed it could be so small, then when i looked at its description it mentioned that it uses your browser to view your fonts. I guess this is sort of a growing trend to use your browser for other than browsing the web. now software often has html help files that are only 1/10 the size of the more traditional pdf file, and all i can say is...i don't like it! I'm not sure I can explain why...i guess I just am not that comfortable reading files on a piece of software that I have always suspected was watching me and sending reports back to the mother ship. I could go on about this little phobia of mine, but instead...
...I'll comment on FontPage, the only tool in this catagory to be awarded five stars by Snapfiles (webattack?). I did download it because I wanted the ability to print font samples, and also its mysterious ability to display fonts in 3D. i am dying to see what my fonts look like in 3D! The one problem is that my printer has gone to that great printspooler in the sky and I have been waiting a while so as not to disrespect it's memory before I get a new one.

I came across an interesting article. Has anyone heard of Paul King, Key Fonts Pro 3003, and the landmark suit that Adobe brought against them? King boldly took 3003 of adobes fonts and used a program to alter them so that their verticle axis became 1 percent bigger than adobes. then they sold this font collection through the Learning Company at some rediculously low price. The very same fonts that adobe was charging about $10,000 dollars for. anyway, Adobe won, however, in one form or another King sold those fonts for 2 or 3 years.

Does that make them illegal fonts, or merely illegitimate ones? If you own the cd are you lucky or branded as a font faker? any opinions?

-HandsOff